INDIANAPOLIS — In an effort to preserve his marriage, the man sitting in row 21, seat 24 of section 646 of Lucas Oil Stadium thought it best not to identify himself when sharing how much he paid for his tickets to the Final Four.
His seat, in the farthest corner of the stadium and, therefore, the farthest away from the basketball being played Monday night between Michigan and UConn, cost $400, he said, a fact he whispered only after covering his wife’s ears.
He purchased five tickets about a month ago, and it got him and his family in the door for all three Final Four games. This trip to the national championship came 16 years after he and his son sat 11 rows closer for the 2010 Duke-Butler championship bout, also played in Indianapolis. For this go-round, they’d invited the women in their family, too: mom, sister and sister-in-law.
He understands if you think his priorities are out of whack, especially considering he’s not a Michigan or UConn alum.
Since 1997, when the men’s Final Four moved permanently to being played in a dome, the outcry is the same every year: A photo circulates from the top section — in the case of Lucas Oil, that’s Level 600 — while others share their astonishment at just how poor the view is from that far away. When people hear what fans paid to get in the door, their brains tend to melt a little.
I’m seeing a lot of posting about the awful seats at the Final Four. I get it.
But I’m in Section 636, way up, and you know what? Not really that bad? Yes the players look like ants. But I can see the whole floor, see plays develop. Phone camera makes it look worse than it is. https://t.co/ZzF2yD6o3f pic.twitter.com/ytdS9hEVEQ
— Scott Warheit (@swarheit) April 4, 2026
But watching your team play for a national championship, as the commercial says, is priceless.
And listen, I get it. Personally, I can’t imagine paying triple or quadruple digits for a sporting event, because what if my team laid an egg? But I’ve shelled out big bucks multiple times to see Beyonce, and it was worth every penny.
The difference is I was in the fourth row. Most people I talked to on Monday night were watching from the fourth story.
Not that it lessened anyone’s enthusiasm. Shortly after tipoff, incensed at the lack of a whistle, a Michigan fan up high yelled out, “Still close enough we can (see) fouls!”
To his point, you can see from that high up, it’s just not terribly clear which player is doing what. There were a few identifying factors that helped, like Elliot Cadeau’s mop of dreads bouncing up and down as he flew down the floor, and Alex Karaban’s lanky frame launching from the perimeter.
The hike up to the top row isn’t for the out-of-shape — or those wearing heels. You might not be broke by the time you get to the top, but you’ll certainly be out of breath.
During nearly every dead ball on Monday, fans ran up the steep steps to get to their seats before the action started again. Multiple times, it was hard to know exactly what was happening, though that didn’t stop any of them from hollering, high-fiving and celebrating with each other. “This is where the rowdy people sit,” one local observed.
Watching from up there isn’t about views, but vibes.
Saturday before tipoff of the first semifinal between UConn and Illinois, tickets to get in the door cost upward of $800. But after the Huskies took care of the Illini 71-62 and Michigan dismantled Arizona 91-73, prices for Monday’s final cratered, as they often do.
That’s when Wayne Evans pounced. Evans and his younger brother Braydon, a junior at Michigan, were tracking prices from their home in Saginaw, Mich., and decided at halftime of UM-Arizona that it was time to pull the trigger. They purchased three tickets at $150 apiece, then drove with their mom five hours to Indianapolis — with plans to drive back after the game.
“At least we’re in the building,” Wayne said, sipping on a tall boy beer. “This is actually my first college basketball game. If they win, maybe I have to go to all of them from now on.”
Newly minted national champion Dusty May, the second-year Michigan coach, probably wouldn’t mind. May attended the Final Four years before he could afford tickets, let alone work a sideline. If you want to coach in college hoops, the Final Four is where you come to beg for a job, which he did as an IU student manager in 2000. So he appreciates the “hard-earned money” fans paid to watch his team cut down nets. He makes more than $4 million annually now, but remembers when he didn’t.
It’s easy to be critical of the NCAA for sticking basketball games in a football stadium and question if anyone in the governing body actually cares about the fan experience. But the ship has sailed on playing championship basketball in a basketball environment. The NCAA Tournament is a money-making behemoth, and you can fit more than three times as many people in a football stadium as you can in a basketball arena.
Attendance at the championship game in 1996 at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, the last time the Final Four was played in a traditional basketball arena, was 19,229. Monday night at Lucas Oil, it was 70,720.
Plus, compared to get-in prices for another major sporting event played in a football stadium, the NCAA title game is a bargain. Monday night, I talked to fans who paid $82 for their ticket, purchased less than an hour before tipoff. The guys who paid $238 each had plans to move down to a lower level “as soon as all the UConn fans start to leave because we’re kicking their ass.” And even if they were stuck up in the rafters for the entire 40 minutes, it could have been (considerably) worse. In February, cheap tickets — a loosely used term — to watch Seattle-New England in the Super Bowl were more than $3,400 apiece.
A few locals told me the 400-level seats are actually worse, because you might have a giant beam or two obstructing your view. I couldn’t personally confirm that, but one big advantage to sitting up high is that you actually get to sit, because everyone on the 200 level and floor stands the entire game.
And actually, the consensus around Lucas Oil Monday might surprise you if you’ve only watched Final Four games from your couch.
“These seats are lowkey way better than the pictures made it seem,” Wayne Evans said, as dozens around him nodded in agreement.
“Do you think they zoom out on those pictures they post?”
